


painting roses

by pennyofthewild



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, M/M, Reunions, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennyofthewild/pseuds/pennyofthewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, flatly, “that had to be the worst confession I have ever heard.”<br/>“Oh,” Hajime crosses his arms over his chest, “I suppose you think you can do better.”</p>
</blockquote>An account of the latest in a series of failed attempts at sentimentality.
            </blockquote>





	painting roses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [masi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/masi/gifts).



> [**[listen]**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpWUd5bBXME)  
>  @tumblr: [[link]](http://pennysdrabbledump.tumblr.com/post/127359730126/painting-roses)
> 
> this is a belated birthday fic for the ever-lovely masi, whose birthday is not actually in August - which you would not know if you used my gifts to her as an indicator. in another example of how big a joke i am, this was supposed to be an iwaoi-separate-colleges fic - and it became a reunion one, instead. 
> 
> ~~(forgive me, dear friend, for the disappointment this will bring you)~~
> 
> (besides, the perfect iwaoi-separate-colleges has already been written. it's called _chasing paper suns_ and it is by [carafin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/carafin/works))
> 
> please note the usual warnings (terrible writing, occasional swearing) apply, in addition to TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF; please proceed with caution; consider yourself warned.
> 
> ~~i think it's time i stopped pretending i don't "actually" ship iwaoi~~

 

 

Rush hour is a distant memory at one in the afternoon, when the morning’s crowds have given way to a steady trickle of travelers moving in and out of the railway station. It helps that, at this time of the day, most people are inclined to travel into Tokyo, and not away from it like Hajime is now.

Schools have let out for break, however, and so the station is not as empty as it might have been at any other time of the year. Instead, it is  thrumming with people and their multitude of sound (the click of shoes, the whir of the ticket machines, the snap of a briefcase falling shut, the shrill, plaintive wail of a child, the hum of a hundred different conversations) muted by brisk, cool air and the high, cavernous ceiling.  

Hajime wraps his fingers around his coffee cup and ponders the irony of waiting for the coffee to cool while also using the cup to warm his hands. From where he is sitting, he has a good view of the station’s main entrance, and whoever is coming in (and going out): a harried looking single? father carrying a toddler on his hip and leading an older child with his other hand, teenagers in jackets and ski-caps, huddled in twos and threes, touching lighters to their cigarettes.

For the last week of March, it is cold– two degrees Celsius, according to Hajime’s weather app – and as Hajime watches, a group of college girls passes through the ticket gates, enshrouded in knee-length winter coats and colorful, tightly wound scarves. Hajime’s own coat is an oversized black parka he is wearing unbuttoned, mostly because he doesn’t like the way it looks done up, but also – according to a particularly insistent part of Hajime’s internal monologue – because he has a tie threaded through his thoroughly-starched,  properly-fastened shirt collar that is already quite uncomfortable and makes for rather difficult breathing.

The truth is, it isn’t the fault of the shirt collar, or the tie. He’s worn both often enough to be thoroughly acclimatized.  It is the strange, inexplicable feeling of nervousness seeded in his chest and is climbing into his throat, that had first made itself known earlier in the morning, on the train back from the office he’s working part-time at, to the dorm.

 

It had been a quarter to eleven, and he’d attributed the feeling to being in danger of running late, and had successfully ignored it  long enough to get home, shower, and change out of his t-shirt and jeans into the outfit he’d ironed the night before, to the sound of the Giants’ match on the television set and Uchida’s – that’s Hajime’s roommate's – running commentary. 

Hajime had picked out the outfit (the shirt is a closefitting pale gray-blue button-down, the trousers are a burnt brown, the tie is a solid navy) a whole week before, feeling a little silly, but mostly determined to make a good (hey-it’s-been-a-whole-year) first impression. His cover story – in case he is teased – is that the prestigious electronics company he is interning at has a strict dress code, and he didn’t have time to change. This is, of course, a bald-faced lie; the company is a startup in its third year of operation. Hajime’s boss likes to show up in dark distressed denim and slogan-splashed neon t-shirts, mostly expects his employees to do the same. He had told Hajime he didn’t have to come in at all, and if he absolutely had to show up he was free to leave whenever he wanted.

“Big weekend tomorrow,” Hajime’s roommate had said while Hajime fiddled with the steam setting on the iron and laid his shirt out flat on the board. Uchida had persuaded himself that Hajime was going on a much-awaited date with a long-distance girlfriend, and Hajime long since gave up trying to convince him otherwise, deciding it was much easier to keep details to a minimum, and play along otherwise.

“Mmhmm,” Hajime said vaguely, pressing the iron along the shirtsleeve creases.

“You usually never care what you look like,” Uchida observed, “and here you are ironing! Must be hot, this girl of yours.”

Hajime opened his mouth to utter another noncommittal grunt – but a vivid image of a honey-brown head of hair (perfectly tamed, other than a rebellious cowlick), dark eyes dancing with laughter, a toothpaste-commercial smile in a summer-brown face – flashed in front of his eyes.

“Beautiful,” he muttered, mostly to himself, but the roommate caught it, sent him another wry grin.

“Man, do you have it bad!”

 

Thinking back on the conversation sitting at a café table in Kitasenju Station – the halfway point – Hajime fingers the necklace in his trousers’ pocket thinks that really, it’s nothing new – he’s had it bad since he was six years old.

 

***

 

It is one-forty-five on the station clock, and Tooru is late.

Hajime’s last message – sent nearly an hour ago – has gone unanswered, as had the phone call he’d tried to make a little after one-thirty.

 

By itself, it is not unusual for Tooru to be late.

He’d made a habit of it all through high school, making Hajime wait downstairs in the mornings before school. Hajime would sit in the kitchen and make small talk with Tooru’s mother until Mr. I-Got-Out-Of-Bed-Like-This had deemed his blow-dry in line with his exacting standards of perfection. However – it  _is_  unlikely for Tooru to be  _this_  late, and for something he’d planned, and that, too, almost three years in advance.

 

Hajime had waited till Tooru had decided to go to Tokai to determine which of the offers he’d gotten he would accept. The decision had come at the heels of the realization that he needed space away from Tooru – space he could call his own, space to find his own person (“Who am I, outside of you, anyway?” he’d wondered out loud, once, purely on accident, and Tooru had thrown him a bewildered look and pretended to completely misunderstand – “what a silly thing to say, Iwa-chan!” – in the most contrived way he knew how, as if Hajime did not know him better).

When he found out – as he would have, eventually – Tooru had, for once, broken tradition, and refrained from throwing a fit. He went really quiet, instead – had paled beneath his tan, ducked his head to avoid meeting Hajime’s gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said eventually, “for holding you back all this time, Iwa-chan,” and before Hajime could step in and shake some sense into his stupid head he’d laughed and continued, gaze directed somewhere over Hajime’s shoulder, “well, Tsukuba  _is_  less than an hour away from Tokai, so you won’t be completely free of me, you hear! You’re not going to get a chance to forget about me – oh, fuck – ”

Privately, Hajime thought he would never have a chance to forget Tooru – but Tooru’s voice had cracked, at this point, and his eyes had started to fill, and so Hajime said, a little desperately, looking purposefully away from Tooru to avoid watching him wipe his face,

“What, are you going to throw your cellphone into a dumpster, dumbass? You know how to dial a number, I could’ve sworn, unless it’s been some other Trashykawa sending me all of the messages my phone is full of – ”

Tooru smiled – a wobbly, watery smile – and he’d looked Hajime in the eye for the first time since Hajime broke his news. 

“I’d like to meet face-to-face too, sometime, Iwa-chan, it’s something different,” and then he’d brightened, suddenly, doing a complete one-eighty as he was, on occasion, prone to do (leaving Hajime to catch up).  “Maybe we could plan something – well – not really a  _reunion_  but some way to catch up – ”

It had been agreed to schedule a trip midway through university during the annual end-of-year break. Where and when would be decided later, closer to the date. 

“It’ll be fun to see how much we’ve changed, huh, Iwa-chan?” Tooru said.

Hajime had made a note on his calendar, but otherwise left the details to Tooru, who would have nitpicked at anything Hajime came up with, anyway.

And in the meantime – Hajime comforted himself with the inevitability of weekend texts every once in a while, and serendipitous meetings in convenience stores when they were home during vacations.

In any case, Hajime knew all of Tooru’s favorite places. They were Hajime’s favorite places too, so really, it would be difficult to avoid him.

 

On graduation day, Hajime had gone to pick Tooru up, as usual. Tooru cried at the ceremony, as was expected of him.

Hajime had, the night before, snipped the second button off his gakuran and put it into the blazer’s pocket. One last sentimental gesture, he thought, but second-guessed himself all morning and through the speeches, finally deciding he’d spare himself the embarrassment all together.

Partway through the deputy head’s closing remarks, Hajime noticed Tooru’s second button was missing, too. After squashing down the-something-like-hope that crawled into his throat, Hajime did not say anything about that, either.

 

 

As he scrolled through his message backlog, later, two months into the spring term, Hajime realized that in fact, he and Tooru had never actually texted much. Thus far, their exchanges had been brief and to the point:  _I’m outside, dumbass, hurry up_  or  _Iwa-chan go on without me I’ll catch up_  –

In hindsight, Hajime thought, it wasn’t surprising.

See: Tooru, for all his outgoing charm and excellent social graces, is and was an inherently private person.  Hajime had, without realizing it, taken the daily conversations – the talks to and from school, and on the court, the meeting up for extra practice on weekends and sharing ice cream afterwards, their living in each other’s pockets – for granted. 

“It’s something different,” Tooru had said, and so Hajime had sent the first text for the first time in a long time.

 

***

 

There are seven minutes till the train leaves. There is another train today, but it does not leave until four o’ clock, and Hajime would rather not wait. He wonders, rather viciously, if Tooru is going to stand him up, if he’s found something more important to do –

 

Sometime during his second year in university, Hajime discovered he was enjoying his classes enough to actually want to do well, and not just pass. From that moment on, volleyball became an extracurricular activity, instead of something soul-consuming. (As a result, he is coming out of term 9 in the top five percent of his class, something he is sure his mother is bragging about to their neighbors back home right now, in this very moment.)

Tooru, of course, had no such life-changing revelations. When it comes to volleyball, Tooru has, for as long as Hajime can remember, been an absolute basket case, and that much hasn’t changed, according to their infrequent conversations and Tooru’s social media accounts. He practices six times a week, including weekends, made the regulars at Tokai University in his second year, and is generally just as shortsighted and bullheaded as he was in high school.

Hajime would not be surprised if Tooru is at practice right now, and neglected to tell Hajime so.

(The thing is, Hajime has always come in second, to volleyball.)

 

Drawing his phone out of his pocket, Hajime dials Tooru again, and is sent straight to voicemail.

 _Hello_ , Tooru’s voice chirps in English, before switching over to Japanese,  _you’ve reached Oikawa Tooru! I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message after the dial tone and I will get back to you as soon as I can!_

Hajime clicks the phone off. He considers going to the ticket counter and asking if he can get a refund on the upwards of thirty-four thousand yen he’d spent on their tickets. Almost as soon as the thought strikes him does he remember how he’s been saving for this almost since he received his acceptance letter in the mailbox.

He is getting up, swinging his bag onto his shoulder when he hears a breathless-shouted, “Excuse me, coming through,” and a louder, “Iwa-chan, wait  _up_!”

Tooru’s face is flushed, as if he’s been running, hair windswept, nose blotchy with cold. He has his coat thrown over his arm and is wearing a ridiculous, UFO-patterned sweater vest, and suddenly, Hajime is not sure if he wants to walk away and pretend he does not know him or, oddly enough, drop his things and give in to the sudden urge to pull him into a hug.

Mostly because they are in a public space but also because he is still upset, Hajime chooses the former option, making his way to the ticket gates as if that had been his intention all along.

Tooru makes a noise halfway between a cough and a laugh – drawing heads, as he is wont to – and catches up as Hajime is feeding their tickets into the gate. He switches his suitcase to his other hand and elbows Hajime in the ribs, still red along the cheekbones. He has a new smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and it isn’t fair that he is still breathtaking even dressed the way he is (who puts green alien ships on a brown sweater anyway) and that is why Hajime’s first words to him are a hissed,

“Where the hell did you get that sweater? It ought to be burned. I am ashamed to be seen with you,” ignoring the part of him that reflects, clinically, that he’s never been good at saying what he actually wants to, especially around Tooru.

“Really? I rather think it brings out my eyes,” Tooru says, voice muffled with laughter, and then he continues, in a more subdued tone, “I’m sorry I’m late Iwa-chan. I got on the wrong bus and had to double back, would you believe that?”

“Did you think of, I don’t know, giving me a call,” Hajime grouches, as they are getting on the train - with barely a minute to spare. He looks back at Tooru, right behind him, words tumbling out of his mouth like a waterfall, even as he is thinking _, hang on, this isn’t_  –  “it’s disgusting. What did you do, make it yourself?”

“Whereas you,” Tooru says, blithely, unaffected by the venom in Hajime’s voice, “look like you ought to be on that advert right there,” he points out the window, to a Burberry billboard. He smiles into Hajime’s rapidly-heating-up face, eyes crinkling, “you look good, Iwa-chan. Is this the result of a workplace dress code?”

There is a little knowing twinkle in his eye and a dimple in his cheek – the one that comes out only when he is really smiling – and maybe it’s embarrassment at being found out (or maybe he’d like to, finally, stop lying, and this is taking the first step), but Hajime says, instead  of nodding and agreeing,

“No, I wanted to wear it,” only, he leaves the  _to look good for you_  unsaid, because whoever said the step had to be that big?

 

(Nobody, that’s who.)

 

***

 

The ryokan Tooru picked out is an hour’s bus ride from Tazawako Station, and so it was half-past seven by the time they arrived, after nearly five hours of travel. Tooru had, not unexpectedly, spent most of the journey in various stages of passed out. His head had dropped onto Hajime’s shoulder almost as soon as he’d fallen asleep, which was also not unexpected. Hajime, thoroughly used to taking Tooru in stride, had pulled a novel out of his bag and read that, to the accompaniment of Tooru’s measured breathing (he’d call it  _snoring_  but he likes his limbs intact, thank you).

Now, Hajime lays back on the side of the futon closest to the window, which looks out over the Sendatsu River waterfall, so close the rush of the water thrums under Hajime’s skin like a second heartbeat. The room is dim, and empty save for him, their luggage, sitting by the coffee table, and the intermittent light from Tooru’s phone, set by the wall to charge. (He’d looked at it when the screen first flickered on and sent Hajime a wry look. “Two messages and three missed calls? Wow, Iwa-chan, you were  _really_  worried!”)

Hajime is trying – unsuccessfully – to sleep, but he is  caught up instead in wondering if the dining room has emptied yet, if the little old lady Tooru struck up a friendship with in the outdoor bath is done eating, if Tooru is still sitting at the table listening to her (liberally embellished, in Haijime’s opinion) account of her lifestory. 

More importantly – and this is the thought Hajime keeps coming back to – he wonders how they are already fighting, despite having been back in each other’s company less than a day, and over something so incredibly trivial –

(“There is no conceivable way the waterfall would open  _into_ the bath, Oikawa, don’t be absurd,” Hajime had said when Tooru expressed his disappointment at it not being the case. “Did you expect them to heat the entire river?”

Tooru muttered something about false advertising, and proceeded to paint his face with the brightly cheery smile Hajime hates the most.

Hajime is not sure how they got from that point to Tooru almost yelling (as close to yelling as he could get in a public onsen),

“I wanted things to be  _perfect_ , Iwa-chan, how hard is that to understand,” and he’d turned away, in the direction of that aforementioned little old lady, and struck up a conversation.)

Hajime’s gaze falls on the crumpled silhouette of his clothes, underneath the coffee table. He debates the merits of getting up to fold them versus not moving and having Tooru yell at him, the hypocrite, like he is any neater himself.

Sitting up, Hajime pulls the trousers to himself. He digs into the pocket and pulls out the jumbled-up metal chain, hopelessly tangled, and picks through the knots till they come apart in his hands, separating into two different necklaces. Sterling silver, strung with matching rings, which glint in the moonlight streaming through the window when he holds them up. He  smooths his thumb along the inscriptions inside – one and four – the latest, Hajime thinks, in a lengthy series of failed attempts at sentimentality. 

It would be nice if this one were to work out a little better than the last.

He unzips the pocket on his messenger bag, slips the necklaces inside. Folds his discarded clothes, tucks them into the bag, too. Then he lies back on the futon, and tries to calm the maelstrom inside his head.

 

Hajime is still awake when Tooru comes in, an indeterminable amount of time later. The click of the door – obtrusive against the backdrop of the waterfall and the muted hum in Hajime’s mind – rouses him from his state of not-quite-asleep-but-getting-there.  He - Tooru - is obviously trying to be quiet, but failing miserably, perhaps because he stubs his toe against the coffee table almost as soon as he walks into the room.

“Fuck,” he swears, mostly under his breath, and follows it up with a string of expletives Hajime hadn’t known he knew. He says, “God, I hate the collars on these things.” Through half-lidded eyes, Hajime sees him yank, viciously, at his  _yukata_ , in an utterly useless gesture. Hajime finds it is difficult to look away when Tooru, posed strategically as he is in a pool of moonlight, unties his  _koshihimo_ , and rearranges the folds of the  _yukata_  in a way that is probably more comfortable but should, in Hajime’s opinion, be made illegal, effective immediately.

Tooru lets out a little breathy sigh, further cementing Hajime’s opinion. Hajime considers that he might be dangerously close to crossing the line cordoning off what constitutes appropriate childhood-friend behavior. But then, he tells himself, he has a fucking pair of promise rings tucked into his overnight bag, and in all honesty, he crossed the line a long time ago.

 

The sheets rustle as Tooru lies down and pulls his covers up to his chin. The room descends into a relative silence, save for the background sounds of the waterfall and their breathing – Tooru’s still rapid, shallow, Hajime’s purposefully deep, even.

It does not last long. There is more rustling as Tooru sits up, minutes after he lay down. Surreptitiously, Hajime cranes his neck to see what he is doing – and watches him retrieves his cellphone from where it is plugged into the wall. He brings it back to the  _futon_ , the glare from the screen reducing his pupils to pinpricks in two seas of honey-brown. It is too harsh for him, this sort of light.

He smiles at the screen, and Hajime hears the tap-tap-tap of a rapidly-composed text message. Then Tooru sets the phone down, leaving Hajime with a strange sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He is contemplating a name for the feeling when Tooru turns onto his side to face him.

“Awake, Iwa-chan?” His voice is soft, probing.

Hajime does not answer, keeping his eyes shut and concentrating on regulating his breathing.

Tooru shifts, restless. “I know you’re awake, Iwa-chan, you can stop pretending now.”

There is a prolonged moment of silence – a protracted battle of wills – that ends with Hajime breathing out in a huff and opening his eyes to stare, pointedly, at the ceiling.

“Volleyball club member?” he asks, jerking his head towards Tooru’s phone, secreted underneath Tooru’s pillow.

He fancies he sees Tooru bite his lip, but when Tooru replies he sounds as jaunty and cheerful as ever, “oh, are we jealous, Iwa-chan?” and he injects a note of dramatic petulance into his tone. “It isn’t my fault, you know, Iwa-chan. You’re being so cold – what can I do but seek solace in somebody else’s arms?”

Frustration bubbles up in Hajime’s chest. “You’re so – ridiculous. And infuriating,” he snaps.

This time, Tooru does bite his lip, and props himself up on his elbow to look at Hajime in the face. “Iwa-chan?”

Beneath the obvious question, there is a little bit of confusion, and a lot of hurt, which Hajime would like to relish in, except he is suddenly very tired, and hasn’t the stomach for it.

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru repeats, looking stupidly pretty, bathed as he is in moonrays, keeping Hajime, as usual, from being one hundred percent angry with him. He rumples his hair with his free hand, pulls a face. Hajime assumes it is meant to be pleading. “Please let’s not fight, Iwa-chan, we don’t have the time for it.”

“What, are you dying?” Hajime says, unfeeling, but he adds, “it’s not like I  _want_  to fight with you.” He turns his head a little, to look Tooru in the eye when he says it.

Tooru looks back steadily, which means they end up having a little staring contest, which Hajime wins –

“You blew  _air_  into my face, Iwa-chan, that’s  _cheating_ ,” Tooru complains, flopping down onto his back, straddling the line between their mattresses, arm wedged up against Hajime's side, too close for comfort.

“All’s fair in love and war,” Hajime says, absently, feeling properly tired for the first time since he lay down.

“I suppose I deserved it, for being an ass,” Tooru says as he is turning his face into Hajime’s shoulder. Hajime wonders, not for the first time, if Tooru is aware of what he is doing, and what he means by it. His breath is hot through Hajime’s sleeve. “Truce?”

 

“Fine,” Hajime concedes, “truce.”

 

He feels Tooru yawn, and then smile, against his arm.

 

***

 

Sitting on a tree stump somewhere in the mountains of northern Akita, in the shade of an eons-old fir tree, Hajime considers the distance from the hiking trail down to the road, a winding strip of tarmac a little over three meters below their current vantage point. It is a beautiful spring day: the sun is out, the birds are singing, and the air is thick with the smell of pine needles and damp earth.

Next to him, Tooru is rubbing antiseptic – it is actually hand sanitizer – into the scrape over his knee. It is no longer bleeding, and while it is rather deep, Hajime is more worried about Tooru’s ankle, which is hot to the touch, and has already begun to swell.

According to the schedule on Hajime’s phone, there should be a bus along within the next forty minutes, which is the time Hajime has to figure out how he is going to get Tooru down several meters of narrow, hazardous dirt path to the road. It’s a good thing he is a born problem-solver.

Tooru hisses through his teeth.

“I knew something like this was going to happen,” Hajime mutters, firmly on the other side of a decade’s worth of similar experiences. “The question is – is it your bad luck, or mine?”

Tooru caps the hand sanitizer, blows on his knee in what Hajime is sure is a futile effort. “I’m not sure luck has anything to do with it, Iwa-chan,” he says, uncharacteristically penitent, “it’s more the result of recklessness and an inability to recognize one’s limits.”

Hajime stares at him. “Who are you, and what have you done with Oikawa Tooru?”

Tooru shrugs, a quick up-and-down movement of his shoulders, and when he meets Hajime’s eyes, his are, unsurprisingly, glassy. “I don’t know,” he says, helplessly, “I guess I left him with his friends in Miyagi.”

Hajime directs his gaze to the ground, and says the first thing that comes to his mind, which is, “your coach going to be okay with you missing practice because of this?” Belatedly, he thinks he could not have said worse, unless he, quite literally, rubbed salt into Tooru’s knee.  “Wait, I mean – ”

“It’s fine,” Tooru says, quietly, “it – never came up last night, did it.”

Hajime is reminded, full force, of everything he hasn’t told Tooru about – some big things, some little things, things he never  _had_  to tell him about, and so was not in the habit of mentioning. It had not crossed his mind that the same might hold true for Tooru, too.

“That’s an ominous statement,” he begins, trying for lightheartedness, “on a scale of one to your actually being an alien organism, how life-shattering is ‘it’?”

Tooru manages a smile, so Hajime considers the attempt a successful one. “I haven’t played volleyball at all this last semester, Iwa-chan,” he says, “would that be an eight or a nine?”

When the words have sunk in, Hajime says, faintly, “an eleven?”

“Have I finally shocked you, Iwa-chan?” Tooru says, laughing a little, “it probably won’t surprise you to hear this, but I pushed myself really hard last season. Our other setter was on the bench with an injury, so I played a lot more than usual. We got all the way to the semis, you know. My knee started bothering me again a couple games in. It just got worse and worse – the day before the semifinal I could barely walk – but I thought with a good night’s rest I’d be able to play through it. Lots of players hide injuries, Iwa-chan, don’t look at me like that!”

“You fucking  _moron_ ,” Hajime spits out. He grips Tooru’s shoulder, shakes him, hard.

“That’s what the coach said, too,” Tooru rubs his hand over his face, “he benched me, signed me up for physical therapy, said if he caught me practicing I’d be off the team for good. But you know – I was okayed to go back just before the holiday began. Really, it could have been worse.”

“Worse  _how_ ,” Hajime grumbles, mostly to himself. Out loud, h says, “if I were your coach I’d bench you forever.” He neglects to mention that this coach seems to be an improvement on their high school one, who knew Tooru’s self-destructive tendencies but never did anything about them.

“You’re so mean, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, with very little bite. He drops his head onto Hajime’s shoulder, taps his fingers on Hajime’s knee as if Hajime’s leg is an extension of his own. “I know what you’re trying to say. It’s just – so  _frustrating_ , when reality never matches up with your expectations – like the waterfall, and how hard work doesn’t measure up against genius, and this,” he gestures at his foot.

“I guess,” he concludes, with a deep, theatrical sigh, “I’m the sort of man likes to rail against Destiny, and this is the only way I know how.”

Hajime takes a moment to process how much he’s missed Tooru’s flair for dramatics, his diatribes, the way he talks with his entire body. He hadn’t thought he would, but he has.

“By  _this_ , you mean overtraining, and taking silly risks, like hiking up a trail you don’t know will lead to your destination, without a guide who does, I suppose,” he says.  “Was there really going to be that big a difference between hiking to the lake and taking a bus there, instead? Half the thrill, perhaps, but we’d get there quicker, have more time to spend – ”

“Do you want to know what I think?” Hajime says, warming to the topic, “I think the best way to  _rail at Destiny_ , as you so eloquently put it, would be to see the positive aspects of whatever situation you’re put in. Like now, for example – if we were higher up, and couldn’t see the road, we wouldn’t be able to keep an eye out for the bus. We’d end up being stranded longer. It’s about making the best of what you have, and I think  _that’s_  the biggest  _fuck you_  you can give Destiny, Tooru.”

He feels Tooru stiffen, against him, and when Hajime looks into his face his eyes are very, very wide.

“What,” Hajime says, disconcerted.

“You called me Tooru,” Tooru says. There is a little wondering note in his voice. Hajime feels himself flush all the way down to his toes.

“I’ve always called you Tooru,” Hajime clears his throat. Tooru shoots him an incredulous look, so he adds, “in my head, at least.”

“Really? I was beginning to think my name was actually Trashykawa.”

Hajime notes, with growing trepidation, that Tooru is smiling  _that_  smile, the one that brings out his dimples, and melts Hajime’s brain.

He is saved from having to reply by the appearance of the bus at the far end of the road. “Oh, look, there it comes,” he says, getting up, and goes to flag it down.

 

“Say, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says when Hajime has come back up to get him. “Would asking one’s best friend to carry them down a hill – you know, because they have a sprained ankle – count as making the best of one’s situation?”

“Not if you ask this friend,” Hajime says, more belligerently than he’d intended. “I’m not carrying you anywhere, Shittykawa.”

“Aw,” Tooru purses his mouth, “I definitely liked ‘Tooru’ better.”

“You’d like being in one piece better, too, trust me,” Hajime says darkly.

 

Halfway down the mountain, Hajime stops, kneels and tells Tooru, “get on, but I swear, if you choke me I will leave you here to die,” and carries him the rest of the way.

 

***

 

“You don’t have to stay here with me, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, when they are back in their room. “Just because I’ve got to stay out of hot water doesn’t mean you have to, too.”

Hajime looks up from the article he is reading on his phone – there is a new branch of Rokurinsha at Tokyo Solomachi – to where Tooru is sitting on the floor by the window, newly-splinted leg stretched out in front of him. “I’d rather stay out of trouble, if it’s all the same to you,” he says, dry.

“Stay out of –?” Tooru blinks. “Wait – oh my  _God,_  Iwa-chan, that was completely unintentional – ”

“I know,” Hajime tells him, “you’re never funny on purpose.”

“Rude,” Tooru sniffs, narrows his eyes. “I’m starting to think your vitriol is a way to cover up how you  _actually_  feel about me, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime’s heart stutters in his chest. “Is that so?”

Tooru nods, emphatic. “I’m fabulous, and you know it. It’s alright to be jealous, Iwa-chan, I don’t mind.”

Oh, Hajime thinks, suddenly disappointed. “Ah, and what is it I’m jealous of, exactly?”

“Let’s see,” Tooru begins, “what isn’t there? I’m athletic, smart, beautiful, I’ve got an arresting personality – ”

Hajime says, “you’re humble, too, how rare is that?” he adds, mostly to himself, “how did I ever miss you?”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, and then, “what was that you said?”

There is something in his voice that makes alarm bells go off in Hajime’s head. He shrugs, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “Nothing,” he says, casually.

Of course, Tooru is not so easily bought off. Instead, Hajime receives a suspicious, tight-lipped frown for his trouble.

“Don’t  _lie_ , Iwa-chan, you said you missed me.”

Rolling his eyes, Hajime says, “why ask what you already know, moron?”

The frown on Tooru’s face unfurls. The resulting smile can only be described as ‘extremely self-satisfied’ or, perhaps, ‘tremendously smug’. “I stand by what I said before,” he says, sounding thoroughly entertained, “you’re like a little boy pulling a girl’s pigtails on a playground. There something you want to say to me, Iwa-chan?”

The alarm bells sound louder. Hajime’s heart splutters again, like an old diesel engine that won’t start on the first try. His mind drifts to his overnight bag, sitting under the coffee table.

“You’re not a girl,” Hajime mumbles, in a half-hearted attempt to put off the inevitable.

“And  _you’re_  not a little boy,” Tooru says, complacent. “So why don’t you come on out and tell it to me like a man?”

“Fine,” Hajime says, and he unfolds his crossed legs and heaves himself off the floor. It occurs to him, as he is – rather violently – unzipping his bag, how bizarre the situation is. And yet – because of the sort of people he and Tooru are – there is probably no other way he could have reached this point, and mustered up the courage to bring out the necklaces that are now gripped, very tightly, in his hand.

Sentimentality has never really been his strong point.

Tooru appears rather astonished, as if he hadn’t expected Hajime to rise to the challenge.

“Here,” Hajime says, roughly, and deposits the necklaces – stupid promise rings and all – into Tooru’s palm.

There is silence, while Tooru stares at the necklaces, and Hajime pretends he isn’t staring at Tooru. As he watches, Tooru picks up one of the rings, reads the inscription on the inside, then glances up at Hajime, looking very much as though he is going to cry.

“What are these supposed to be, Iwa-chan?” he asks, as if he doesn’t already know. If Hajime didn’t know better, he’d think Tooru enjoys watching him be miserable, however, as matters stand, Hajime is more upset that Tooru feels the need for validation from  _him_.

“Something I’ve been meaning to give you since graduation,” Hajime says, which is easier than saying  _a confession, dumbass_ , despite it not being strictly true.

Tooru’s throat bobs. His fingers close around the necklaces so tightly Hajime is sure the little metal links will leave marks. “Will you get me my wallet off the table, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime retrieves it.

“I was,” Tooru begins, opening the wallet with trembling fingers, “supposed to get these strung, but I didn’t know I would have to ask separately,” and he brings out two round dark buttons – gakuran buttons – and holds them flat on the palm of his hand.

Hajime lets out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. He picks one of the buttons up, notices the little hole through which it can be threaded, and then, the word etched into the surface:

 _Partner_ , the button says.

 Hajime is transported back to graduation day, to the moment after the ceremony, to Tooru leaning into him –

“You’re like my backbone, Iwa-chan, I never would have gotten as far as I did without you. You’re the best partner I could have had. That much isn’t going to change, is it?”

“Is this,” Hajime says, hoarsely, “actually the button off your uniform? How did you get this done without it breaking?”

The damp on Tooru’s cheeks glistens in the faint silver light coming in through the window. Hajime is not sure when the sun set, just that it had, without their noticing.

“At a novelty gift store I found online,” Tooru says, brushing ineffectually at his face. “There are places that will do just about anything for you if you pay them; even paint flowers a different color.”

 

They thread the buttons onto the necklaces, then Hajime clasps Tooru’s around his neck. Afterward, Tooru fastens Hajime’s, leaning in to properly secure it, enveloping Hajime with the smell of shampoo and sweat, fingers lingering, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Hajime tucks his necklace into his shirt.

“Say, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, tone merry – though it is still ragged, around the edges, “are these supposed to be engagement rings? You didn’t say.”

Hajime’s face flames. He is pretty sure his ears are red, too, and that it is very unbecoming.

“They’re – promise rings,” he grumbles. “Aren’t actions supposed to speak louder than words?”

“Words make actions clearer, though,” Tooru muses, crestfallen, “I mean, here I thought we’d be married come summer.”

He hadn’t thought it was possible, but Hajime’s face reddens further, till he is sure he is doing an excellent impression of a very ripe tomato.

“Are you really going to make me do this,” Hajime complains. He furrows his brow, gnaws the inside of his cheek. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” Tooru says, cheerfully, and then his shoulders slump. “But I guess I’ll never really know, because – ”

“Alright fine, fine,” Hajime says grouchily. Clearing his throat, he says, “Oikawa Tooru, in spite of your numerous annoying tendencies, and for mysterious reasons I will never fully understand, I don’t hate you.” He pauses. “There, I said it.”

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, flatly, “that had to be the worst confession I have ever heard.”

“Oh,” Hajime crosses his arms over his chest, “I suppose you think you can do better.”

“Sure I can,” Tooru says, and rattles off, almost in a single breath, “Hajime, you have always been more than a best friend to me – the best friend I have ever had, the most reliable partner, the person I can always count on. To me, you are the most beautiful person in the world, inside and out. I love you very much, and I mean that in an  _I would marry you in a heartbeat if this were California_ way and not a  _you are like a brother to me_ way.”

In the aftermath of this statement, Hajime realizes that:

1)      Tooru, having grown progressively more flustered as he talked, is now a very fetching crimson

and

2)       his heart has yet to restart after the shock of hearing Tooru call him by his first name.

“Please don’t say anything,” Tooru mumbles, into his drawn-up knees, “you’re right, that was hard, how do people do it?”

Privately, Hajime thinks that, while by no means award-worthy, Tooru’s “confession” was way better than his had been. For once, his inner cynic is completely silent. It has obviously decided to take Tooru at face value.

Hajime hesitates, vacillating between waiting for Tooru to look up and approaching him himself. A minute elapses, and still all Hajime can see of Tooru’s head is his mop of curly brown hair.

“Hey,” Hajime says, finally, squeezing Tooru’s shoulder, “come here,” and he pulls Tooru into him, wraps his arms around him as tightly as he can, presses his lips to Tooru’s temple, suddenly, inexplicably thrilled. “I love you too, dumbass. I can’t believe I have to  _tell_  you.”

This gets Tooru to lift his head. The flush has somewhat receded, but his nose is still endearingly red.

“I’m not a telepath, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, wryly, sliding his arms around Hajime’s waist. His head comes to a rest against Hajime’s collarbone. He is a solid, tangible weight draped over Hajime’s lap -  sharp chin, sticky-out hipbones, protruding ribcage: familiar, grounding, present.

 

Real. 

***

 

Waking up to Tooru curled against him is, by no means, a novel experience. Years of sleepovers with a clingy best friend (who has no regard for personal space) have thoroughly acquainted Hajime with being hung on to during the night, and waking up with a mouthful of hair, or a bony extremity in his stomach.

Even this – Tooru’s head on his chest, tucked under his chin, fingers curled into the fabric of Hajime’s shirt – is not a new experience. A part of Hajime ponders Tooru’s long-standing habit of casually blurring boundaries, and whether it is supposed to have been strategic all along, and not just a side-effect of his personality. It makes sense, but it also makes Hajime question his observational skills, and mourn time lost. He puts the thought out of his mind, after a moment’s consideration – gathering courage, as it were – runs his fingers through Tooru’s hair, combing through the tangles he finds. Tooru’s hair is soft to the touch, unlike Hajime’s own, which is bristly, because of how short he keeps it. 

He’d thought of styling it differently, once, in middle school, but – once confronted with the particulars of hair care routines – quickly decided otherwise. Sleep, in Hajime’s book, is way more important than hours in front of the mirror, or, God forbid, regular stylist appointments.

Tooru sighs, hot breath fanning out over Hajime’s throat, mumbles something unintelligible. The sound draws Hajime out of his reverie, brings his attention back to Tooru’s face: forehead smooth, unwrinkled, the bit of dried-up white at the corner of his mouth, slack with sleep, long, dark lashes casting shadows on his cheek.

Early morning sunlight slants through the window, falls in thick gold stripes across the sheets, the tatami mats, Tooru’s face, faintly luminous, like there is a sun inside him, too.

Hajime has thought Tooru pretty since he was old enough to recognize pretty when he saw it. Tooru isn’t just pretty, though – Tooru is ridiculously, glaringly, stupidly beautiful.

Just like that, Hajime is back to wishing they hadn’t wasted so much  _time_  – . But, he tells himself firmly, you can’t deny you needed the time. To find yourself, isn’t that what you said? There’s no denying, either, that it’s done him good. Hajime is not sure it shows, but he is more emotionally stable now, he thinks, and definitely more  _mature_ –

Presently, Tooru stirs, head grazing the underside of Hajime’s chin. Hajime’s hand tightens reflexively, around Tooru’s shoulder. He can feel the shift in Tooru’s breathing – and then Tooru blinks, opens his eyes partway.

“Good morning, Iwa-chan,” he says into Hajime’s shirt, the timbre of his voice, thick with sleep, raising goosebumps along Hajime’s spine. “Have you been up very long?” He tilts his head, looks up at Hajime through the curtain of his lashes, face creasing into a sleep-slow smile.

“No,” Hajime manages, once he has regained the ability to speak, “go back to sleep.”

“I’m up now,” Tooru’s expression turns wistful. “Can we stay like this for a little while? What time is it?”

“Half-past seven,” Hajime tells him, gruffly.

Tooru exhales, throws an arm over Hajime’s middle. “Were you thinking about something important before I woke up? You were looking frowny.”

Hajime bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at this – tame – description of his ‘thinking face’. He’s seen enough pictures of himself studying to know he looks terrifying when he is focusing on something. “Nothing really important.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tooru says, but lets it go, changing tracks to, “do you remember what you told me before graduation?”

“What about it?” Hajime says, unable to keep the amusement from his tone this time. He’d forgotten how good Tooru is at reading him.

Tooru raises himself up on his elbow, sets his chin in his palm, free hand splayed across Hajime’s sternum. He tilts his chin, and his bedhead – a veritable bird’s nest – quivers with the motion. 

“So – what did you find out? About yourself?”

A moment’s pause:

That I like engineering, Hajime thinks. That I don’t want to play volleyball professionally, but I will always associate it with the best time of my life. I’m not cut out for casual relationships, and I’m not as ambitious as I thought I was. That I took you for granted as much as you took me, maybe even more. That it doesn’t matter what sort of person I am outside of you, because you are the best part of me, the brightest part of me, the part I miss the most when it goes away.

Hajime focuses on Tooru’s face, poised above his, regarding him with open curiosity. There is an exceptionally wayward curl sticking straight up from the crown of his head. Hajime reaches up with the intention of flattening it, but Tooru catches Hajime’s hand against his face and keeps it there. The swell of his cheek is cool underneath Hajime’s fingers. 

Hajime sucks in a preparatory breath and takes the plunge.

“I found,” he begins slowly, “that I’m not entirely whole except when I’m around you.”

In the moment between his admission and Tooru’s reply, because it is inevitable,  Hajime waits for Tooru to start crying.

“Don’t,” Tooru says, finally. His voice is taut, but his eyes are dry, “say anything else, Hajime, please.”

He probably does not mean them to, but the words sting. Hajime swallows through the sudden lump in his throat.

“I – ” he starts, but is cut off, by the firm press of Tooru’s lips against his own, Tooru’s fingers sliding into his hair, Tooru’s blunt nails finding purchase against his scalp. Hajime brings his own hands up, cups the back of Tooru’s head, squeezes the nape of Tooru’s neck. Tooru makes a muffled sound against Hajime’s mouth, something between a moan and a sob, and his lips part over Hajime’s, warm, insistent. 

Under the sour tang of morning breath, Tooru tastes a little like salt. Hajime can feel the slow drag of wet eyelashes across his skin.

 

***

 

“I can’t believe,” Hajime gripes as he is helping Tooru onto the train, “you own  _two_  of those fucking sweaters. You need to be put on a leash.”

The offending garment is an inversion of the one Tooru wore on the first day: green, with brown aliens this time.

“They were on sale together, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, earnest, “I didn’t have the heart to just buy  _one_.” His tone turns sly. “But you know, I might just take you up on that leash offer some time – ”

Hajime claps a hand over his mouth, hisses, scandalized, “shut up, idiot, people can  _hear_  you – ”

Tooru’s eyes twinkle ominously as Hajime deposits him into his seat. “A little planning never hurt anybody,” he says. “What else are you going to do for a whole week in Miyagi? Hang out with your parents all break?”

“Keep planning things like that and you  _will_  be hurt,” Hajime says, bad-naturedly, more out of habit than anything else. There is, after all, the comfort of familiarity in this routine, if nothing else. He sits across from Tooru and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“You’re aware,” Tooru says, nudging Hajime’s knee with his own, “that I do know you don’t mean any of that, Iwa-chan? You’re all bark and no bite.”

As soon as he says this, his eyes light up, and Hajime has a sudden, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“No, absolutely not,” he says, pre-emptively, and resolutely tunes out whatever Tooru says next.

 

(If it’s important, he figures, he’ll find out eventually.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

end.

 


End file.
